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Morale Overview

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War is very distinct from other strategy games due to the fact that its infantry units must account for morale level in addition to their own health levels.

A unit's morale level is displayed in blue, as compared to the green color of their health. Visual indicators of the squad's morale are displayed underneath the squad leader when moused over, as well as in blue numbers underneath the squad's health when selected individually.

When any member of a squad receives damage, the entire squad's morale level drops. If the unit's morale level drops to zero, the squad "breaks" and its combat efficiency drops tremendously until it rallies and unbreaks.

Taking Morale Damage

Most weapons do moderately low morale damage per hit, while weapons designed to break morale, such as a Flamer, tend to do high morale damage per hit as well as have an Area of Effect.

Since Area of Effect weapons such as Flamers or artillery can hit multiple units with each attack, their morale damage is multiplied that many times over since each squad member's damage contributes to the whole squad's morale damage taken.

When a squad member dies, the squad takes a large hit to its overall morale. Several squad members dying in quick succession will greatly speed up the process of breaking the squad.

These properties mean that smaller squads such as Tankbustas or Scouts are much harder to break than large squads such as full Chaos Space Marine squads or Imperial Guardsmen squads who have more members taking morale damage simultaneously.

When checking to see how much morale damage weapons do keep in mind that squads have morale armor. This is almost universally set to 50%, except Terminator Squads and Assault Terminator Squads who only take 25% morale damage, Scout Marine Squads, Pathfinder Teams, XV15 Stealth Teams, and Missionaries who take 70% morale damage, and Ecclesiarchal Servitors who take 100% morale damage. This armor protects from all sources of morale damage including weaponry, squad member death, and caster self-damage (such as the Psyker). Weapon morale dps values and squad morale death penalties already factor in morale armor, including the non-standard morale armor for Terminators and Scouts. The squad morale death penalties for commanders are adjusted for the commander's morale armor, so attaching the commander to a squad with a higher or lower morale armor will likewise reduce or increase the death penalty inflicted.

Effects of Being Broken

When a squad is broken, the following effects are typically associated.

1) The accuracy of all the weapons in the squad drop to 20% of their original value.
2) The maximum speed of the squad increases by 20%.
3) A pulsing red cursor appears underneath each member of the squad to serve as a visual cue.

These effects last until the squad rallies.

There is one exception to that rule in the form of Chaos Horrors. When Horrors are broken, they do not receive the speed bonus nor the accuracy penalty, but rather, they take 50% more damage from all weapons.

Warp Beast Packs, in addition to the effects listed above, will turn against themselves, attacking their own squad or other nearby Dark Eldar units until their morale restores.

Also note that artillery-type weaponry cannot miss, which includes if the squad's morale is broken. More information can be found in the DPS article.

Broken Imperial Guard squads can man bunker and Chimera guns without any penalty. Bunkering them while their morale restores, assuming you have no Commissars around who can use Execute to instantly restore their morale, is a good way to continue to get some use out of them until their morale restores.

Each squad must spend a certain minimum amount of time broken, specific to each squad. After that minimum time broken has passed and the squad has regenerated enough morale to reach the minimum threshold for unbreaking, the squad rallies. The minimum threshold to restore morale is likewise dependent on the squad and is the third value listed for the morale for squads in the wiki.

Recovering Morale and Mitigating Morale Damage

Units recover morale naturally as time passes. The amount of morale regenerated per second varies from squad to squad, and can be found on the individual unit's data page.

Attaching squad leaders or Commanders to squads can either boost the squad's overall morale level, boost the squad's morale regeneration rate, or add special abilities which impact morale. The Chaos Lord in particular possesses an ability to greatly increase morale regeneration rate of a squad when attached.

Certain abilities are present to either rally troops or lower morale damage taken. Space Marine Sergeants and Commissars can either Rally or Execute troops respectively to unbreak their squads. Chaos Aspiring Champions can trigger the Berserk Fury ability to increase both physical damage given and physical damage taken while reducing the amount of morale damage taken. The Orks, in great numbers, achieve bonus from their Waagh! ability which either boost morale regeneration rate or even grant morale immunity when a large enough bonus is achieved. Sisters of Battle Seraphim Squads can use Angelic Visage to restore nearby units' morale and make them temporarily immune to morale damage. Sisters can also use Laud Hailers from buildings and Rhino Transports to boost allied morale. The Eldar Avatar, on the other hand, grants immunity to morale damage to all units in its vicinity.

Units in cover also receive bonuses to morale regeneration. In general, Heavy Cover grants a 100% boost to morale generation (to a total of 2x original value), while Light Cover only grants a 50% boost to morale regeneration.

Also, units in melee receive extra protection from morale damage. When a squad is in melee, its members only receive 10% of the listed morale damage from ranged attacks. Morale damage from melee weapons and from squad members dying is unaffected.